Those Who Wait
by Morwen Tindomerel
Summary: Happenings in Rivendell during the Ring quest. Finished.
1. Arwen

She managed to make it safely back to her chamber before the tears began to flow. Why did he keep doing this to her? It was at moments like this, after partings like this, that she came close to despair. Why couldn't he understand? She didn't care about crowns or kingdoms or safety or peace. She knew what a Ranger's life was like and had prepared herself to share it. She could use sword and bow, heal the wounds and sicknesses of Men and animals, tend garden and dairy and do all the other duties that fell to the mistress of a holding. They could have been married years ago. Father would have been unhappy, yes, but the matter would have been settled. He'd have had no choice but to accept it. As it was he kept hoping, kept arguing.

Oh this was his doing, she knew it was! She'd overheard Father on that theme before, telling Aragorn he would only bring her to misery and death and making him believe it. The brief spurt of anger died. She knew only too well how much it would hurt Elrond to lose her, how could she blame him for putting up a fight? Wouldn't she do the same in his place. Besides, it wasn't Father who'd made Aragorn give her back her ring all those years ago in Lorien and tell her he had nothing to offer her to match what she would have to give up, that they must forget each other. That had been his own idea, his own belief. And she'd never, for all her efforts, been able to change his mind.

She'd lain awake all that long, miserable night listening to the golden leaves rustling around her chamber and remembering Aragorn's father and grandfather and all those other Heirs of Isildur who'd loved her so passionately as boys and forgotten her so completely once they were Men. And it in the dark watches of that endless night a terrible fear entered her heart, fear that Aragorn had tired of her, like all his fathers before him, but was too kind to tell her so. By daylight she'd known the thought for the nonsense it was. She had seen the love and the pain in his eyes and known that he truly believed she would be better off without him. Aimlessly idling the long years away in the peace and beauty of Rivendell and Lorien. But it was to late for that. She knew it, even if he didn't.

Neither Aragorn nor her father seemed to understand that she'd changed. She was no longer the blithe Elf child she'd once been, before shed seen Estel, and never could be again. The Mortal side of her nature had become very strong over fifty years of loving a Man and fitting herself to live among his people. She was more Woman than Elf now and she knew in her heart Aman was not for her.

Even if Aragorn died, or truly tired of her and never wanted to see her again she would stay in Middle Earth and grow old and die alone if she must. Like her brothers before her she had found her true self and there was no going back. Even though she knew it would break her father's heart, and her mother's, and her grandparents' too.

She wiped her eyes. If Aragorn returned she would tell him that, and he'd finally stop being so blasted noble and self sacrificing and let them get on with making a life together. If he didn't return, she'd find him again beyond the Circles of the World, as Luthien their ancestress had found Beren. Either way, they'd be together - and that was all that mattered.


	2. Elrond

Death was Elrond's enemy. It had taken his twin brother, his foster parents, the friends of his childhood and youth, and generation after generation of his kin. Elros heirs, loved, nurtured, advised - then lost, stolen from him by the Mortality of Men. It would take his sons too - someday. But not his daughter, not Arwen!

He didn't like what he was doing to both his daughter and the nephew-foster son who loved her, but he had no choice. Arwen belonged with her mother's people, the few thin drops of Mortal blood she'd inherited from him couldn't be allowed to change that. Aragorn would survive, Men were accustomed to living with sorrow. If he lived at all, which was questionable.

Elrond had done his best to persuade his Elven peers to honor the ancient alliance with the Men of the West, but he wasn't surprised that he'd failed. The two Kindreds had become estranged over this last Age. The descendants of the Fathers of Men were few and scattered. Most Mortals in Middle Earth came from Men who'd had no part in the ancient wars, or even fought on the other side.

Could it be Aragorn had been right all along? Even if he were to proclaim his lineage and show the sword of Elendil reforged would Men follow? Might not even Gondor turn its back on him as it had on Arvedui. Had the time of the Dunedain passed even as had the time of the Elves? Elrond feared so. When he cast his Sight forward he saw only Darkness.

The clatter of hooves in Rivendell's forecourt roused him from his reverie. Going to the balcony overlooking the dusk shadowed yard he saw a small troop of Rangers dismounting. Then he recognized his nephews and niece and hurried down to them.

Gilvagor's face, so eerily like that of Elros his distant forefather, was set in grim lines."Greymere's fallen," he told Elrond bluntly, without greeting. "The Line is broken, we can hold them back no longer."

So it had come at last. If even the stubborn Isildurioni admitted they were overmatched the end must be very near. "You have done all that you can, Gilros,"*1 Elrond answered. "Time for you to think of your own people." Then he asked with concern; "Aranel and the children?"

"Safe. The household and most of the garrison escaped through the tunnel beneath the mere," the Captain of the North ran a hand through his tangled, sweat dampened hair and glanced at his cousin Beruthiel.

"There is an army massing in the Ettenmoors, Uncle," she said quietly. "Orcs, Wargs and Trolls. I doubt Rivendell can be held."

"I am sure it cannot," Elrond rejoined grimly. "I am sending my people to the Havens, there is no refuge left in Middle Earth." for Elves there was escape but - "what of the Dunedain?"

"I have ordered the people of the North Wardenships to regroup at Annuminas," Gilvagor said crisply.

Elrond nodded, feeling a faint trickle of relief. "A good choice." The Kingdom of the Lake had withstood the last Dark Tide, perhaps it could ride out this one as well. It was their only chance. He looked from nephews to niece and frowned, suddenly troubled. "Surely the three of you didn't come all this way just to bring me news any courier might have carried?"

"No indeed," Gilvagor answered briskly. "We have come for the treasure of Elendil."

"Of course, it will no longer be safe here," Elrond agreed, but warily sensing something more behind the request, a thing that he didn't like at all.

"We would not willingly allow the Star and the Scepter to fall into the hands of the Enemy," said his nephew, "but more importantly we have need of the arms and banners in the treasury."

"Why?" Elrond stared at his Mortal kin with terror in his heart. "Gilros, surely you do not mean to fight?"

Two Men and a Woman returned his appalled stare steadily. "What else would you have us do, Uncle?" Beruthiel's brother, Belecthor, asked calmly.

"Take refuge in Annuminas! For once in a thousand years take thought for your own lives!" Elrond cried. "You said yourself the Line was broken, that the Dunedain could no longer hold back the Enemy."

"That is so," Belecthor agreed, "and therefore we go forth to face him in open battle."

"And we mean to hide no longer!" Gilvagor's voice rang through the yard, drawing other Elves to listen and watch, and his eyes blazed with a silver light. "We will take up the arms of our fathers and show again the banners and devices of the House of Elendil and the Dunedain of the North!"

"And you will die!" Elrond shouted back passionately.

Gilvagor made an impatient gesture, but Belecthor answered almost gently; "All Men die, Uncle, it is just a question of when and how. If this is to be the end of the Dunedain it will be such an end as to make the Fathers of Men proud."

"You cannot win," Elrond said in despair. And it was true, the might of Mordor had grown beyond the power of Men and Elves to match. This war was lost before it was even begun and none knew it better than the Dunedain, long the scouts and spies of the White Council.

All three Mortals nodded, quite calmly. "The true battle does not lie with us," Beruthiel reminded him quietly. "We seek but to buy time for the Ringbearerto complete his quest."

"And if Frodo fails?" her uncle demanded harshly. "Then Darkness will take all Middle Earth even unto the End of Days and your blood will have been spent for nothing! Already the Ringbearer falters and our last hope with him!"

But Gilvagor shook his head. "Our last hope lies beyond the Circles of the World," he said softly, but with a conviction Elrond remembered well from other lips, spoken in even darker times than these. "Our Father will never abandon his Children to the Shadow. If we fall he will raise up others to carry on the fight, and others after them, generation upon generation until the World is cleansed."

"Despair is the tool of the Enemy, as you of all Men living should know," Belecthor chided, and smiled as Elrond stared at him, nonplussed. "Yes I said Man. You were a Man before you were an Elf, Uncle, and part of you will always belong to us. Don't forget the teachings of your Mortal Kin, for we have our own wisdom which is unlike that of the Elves but no less true."

-----

The next evening Elrond stood at a window of his library, watching as the last twinkling Elf lantern disappeared over the rim of the valley. His people were on their way to the Havens and safety, and Arwen was with them. Finally, finally she had seen where her true path lay.

He was relieved beyond measure and yet his heart was wrung with pity for Aragorn, his beloved foster-son facing dreadful perils in the south, who would now come home - if he came home at all - to a bitter loss. But Aragorn had wanted her to go too, Elrond reminded himself, he had understood the futility of Arwen giving up her heritage for something she would inevitably lose anyway.

Despite his love Aragorn would have left her in the end. His nature, the mortality of Men, would give him no choice. And Arwen would have dragged out who knew how many long years alone, without the consolation of her kin, before finally passing into the dark herself. Truly it was better this way Elrond told himself - and in his heart he knew he lied.

But the Blessed Land would heal Arwen's grief, he argued. And Aragorn, even if he somehow survived, would not have to bear his for long. The Doom of Men would spare him the endless years of loss Elrond himself had endured.

His sons, Elladan and Elrohir, were gone as well, but not to the Havens like their sister. They had ridden south some weeks before with a party of Rangers, joining their fate to that of the Dunedain as they had decided to do many years before. His children had chosen their roads and were gone. It was high time Elrond himself decided what he was going to do.

Turning away from the balcony he paced along the gallery until he came face to face with Isildur, confronting Sauron in the final desperate moments of that earlier war, and his heart was wrung again by an old familiar grief for another beloved nephew who had saved them all and yet failed them in the end.

But Frodo too was failing as the Ring's power over him grew. His Hobbit innocence and resilience of no more avail than Isildur's strength and the divineMaiar strain in his blood. Perhaps the Ring was to much for any of them.

"Forgive me, my nephew, if I have judged you to harshly and blamed unjustly." Elrond said softly. "And forgive me, Frodo Baggins, for putting you to this trial but you were our only hope - and you did consent."

He turned to the statue of Elemmire *2 but the shield she cradled was empty, the blade of Elendil gone. Elrond stared a moment, nonplussed, then told himself that his Mortal nephews, Elendil's Heirs, would of course have taken his sword along with their other heirlooms. Yet the empty shield filled him with a strange uneasiness, a dark foreboding that he shrugged aside with an effort. It was time he too was leaving, it wouldn't take him long to catch up with his people on the west road to the Havens.

But even as Elrond formulated the thought he knew that his heart had already chosen otherwise. He looked down at Vilya, gleaming blue on his hand and smiled crookedly. Six thousand years and more he had lived as an Elf, for the Age of the World as King in all but name of the Eldar west of the mountains. But Belecthor was right, the choice made so long ago hadn't changed the blood in his veins. He was, and would always be, but Half-Elven. And the half that was Man would not, could not, abandon his kin in their last need - even if all he could do was die beside them. Whatever the other Elven lords decided *he* at least would stand by the ancient alliance between Men and Elves.

Elrond pulled the ring from his finger and holding it tightly in his closed hand went swiftly, robes billowing, down the stair from the gallery, across the terrace and down the steps to the courtyard to pull to an abrupt halt. He stared incredulously, at a forecourt filled from wall to wall with rank upon rank of armored Elven warriors, their tall helms and bright spearpoints catching the starlight.

Glorfindel, eyes glinting laughter, stepped forward to make him a bow. "We await your orders, my Lord Elrond."

"I thought I had already given you my orders," he managed to reply.

Fair brows arched innocently. "Forgive me, my Lord, but I cannot remember hearing any such."

Elrond tried to look stern, failed utterly and laughed instead. "You know me well, Glorfindel, perhaps better than I know myself." He hesitated a moment, tempted to go after his sons. But no, there were those nearer at hand who could use his help and that of a hundred or so Elven knights. "We will ride north, to join the army of the Dunedain mustering at Cristhoron *3. Give me but a few moments to make ready."

The ranks of knights parted before him as he crossed the courtyard to climb the steps to his private chambers. Elrond put Vilya carefully away in its small casket, then put aside a hanging to uncover a door unopened for many long years. Inside hanging from pegs on the wall were armor, shield, and a sword.

He took the last down reverently with both hands. The curved, single edged Elven blade glittered with a chilly blue-white light. This was Ringil the sword of Fingolfin, first High King of the Noldor in Exile, who had fallen before the very gates of Angband, wounding Morgoth with his last desperate blow. His sword had been left lying where it fell from his dying hand, to be found long years later by the Host of Valinor when they besieged the dark fortress.

And so it had come to Elrond who was, with his brother Elros, Fingolfin's only living descendant and heir. For long years it had hung unused in this hidden closet but now they would go to war together one more time, the last battle of the last war.

-----

1. 'Gilros' is Elrond's name for Gilvagor, its meaning, 'Star Foam' is the same as that of Elros who Gilvagor strongly resembles.

2. Elemmire was the daughter of Elendil. The shards of his sword were brought to her by her grandson, one of the three survivors of the Gladden Field.

3. 'Eagle Cleft' is the home and stronghold of the Wardens of the Angle, a title currently held byBeruthiel's elder son Ereinion.


	3. Mr Bilbo Baggins

No two ways about it, it was all his fault. If only he hadn't found the the Ring! But if not him it would have been some Orc, and with Sauron practically next door in Dol Guldur he'd have had it back before you could wink and then where would they all be? Bilbo sighed and massaged his eyes wearily.

The wide world was a very complicated place, everything was connected with everything else so that if you changed just one little thing, like a Hobbit Burglar with a magic ring, it might all fall apart. Without the Ring he wouldn't have escaped the Goblin Tunnels or been able to rescue his companions time and time again. And without Thorin and Company Smaug would still be brooding over the ruins of Erebor and Dale, and the Dwarves would still be wandering homeless, and poor Bard would have died a simple bowman in Laketown. So, odd as it seemed, the Ring of the Enemy had done *some* good, at least while it was in the hands of Bilbo Baggins!

What was it Gandalf had said? Oh yes, That he, Bilbo, had been *meant* to find the Ring and to use it, and *meant* to pass it on to Frodo when it became to much for him. And it was to much for him, he'd proved that to himself, and Frodo too, the day the Fellowship left Rivendell. The Ring had him good and proper, no mistaking, why he'd probably carry it straight home to Sauron! he shuddered at the thought. No, it had to be the boy. And the quest would cost Frodo his life. Bilbo hadn't been meant to hear that but he had. His nephew was going to die and it was all his fault. His fault for finding the Ring, his fault for adopting Frodo, and most of all his fault for leaving the burden to him.

"Bilbo."

The Hobbit hastily wiped his eyes and stuffed his handkerchief back in his pocket before turning to face Elrond. The Master of Rivendell's face lookd more deeply lined than usual, grim and grieving. Bilbo's heart stopped. "Frodo?" he managed to croak.

"There has been no fresh news of the Ringbearer," Elrond assured him quickly. "But my Mortal kin tell me Rivendell itself is under threat from an army of Orcs and Trolls mustering in the Ettenmoors. I have decided to send my people to the Havens. And you, Bilbo Baggins, must decide what you are going to do."

"Do?" the Hobbit echoed blankly.

"You cannot stay here alone," the Elf lord pointed out reasonably as he knelt down to put himself on eye level. "We must pass through the Shire on our way to the Havens, you can return to your own people if you like."

Bilbo swallowed. "I don't think so. You see they'd want to know about Frodo and the others and I wouldn't know what to tell them."

Elrond nodded, understanding. "Then you must continue with us to the Havens. Cirdan would welcome your company."

"That's very kind of him." said Bilbo politely, brightened suddenly. "Why I could see the sea! I'd like that."

-----

All of Rivendell was in a tizzy the next day as its inhabitants prepared to leave. Which in the case of the Elves seemed to involve making farewell visits to all their favorite places and walks rather than packing.

"Aren't you going to take anything with you?" Bilbo asked his friend Lindir.

The Elf smiled sadly. "Food enough for the journey to the Havens, a change of garments and perhaps a keepsake or two, no more. They say it is better so, and we shall find all that we need waiting for us in the West." his tone altered. "But that doesn't apply to you, Bilbo! You must take your books and your notes so you may continue your studies in Mithlond, and anything else you think you will need or want."

Half of Rivendell ended up helping Bilbo with his packing. The Elves in the kitchens made up packets of all his favorite things to eat, other Elves bundled up his clothes and pipes and walking sticks, carefully collected and wrapped his notes, blank paper and pens, and Elrond himself selected books from the library for him. Having something to do seemed to cheer them all up a little. Still the atmosphere was very solemn as the long procession set out that evening, crossing the bridge and winding their way up the long path out of the valley, Elf lanterns twinkling like stars in their hands.

Bilbo was perched uncomfortably atop an Elven horse rather to big for him led by Lindir and surrounded by other Elves carrying his packages and bundles. He had all he could do to keep awake and the soft Elvish singing wasnt helping one bit! Why they'd waited til nightfall to leave he couldn't imagine, nor how long it'd be before he'd be able to lie down for a proper sleep.

As it happened they stopped just before dawn at an Elven resting place off the Great Road with the swift waters of the Bruinen chuckling somewhere beyond the trees. Bilbo's Elven companions showed him to a bower woven of living trees and he crawled gratefully into heaped furs and silken coverlets.

He was just drifting off to sleep when a soft voiced "Bilbo?" jerked him awake.

"Lady Arwen?" he asked uncertainly, peering into the predawn dimness.

A pale oval of a face, framed in dark velvet, nodded. "I am not going to the Havens."

"Of course you're not." Bilbo agreed promptly. "Er - where are you going then?"

She smiled. "Where I belong." The smile faded. "But I cannot just disappear, I want my father to know I am safe. Tell him - tell him that I love him and my mother but I must follow my heart." Tears made sparkling tracks down her cheeks.

"Indeed you must." Bilbo said firmly. "All the ages of the world is much too long a time to live with a broken heart."

Arwen Undomiel smiled again. "I agree." she leaned forward to place a kiss on his brow. "Thank you, Bilbo."


End file.
